Montserrat

Montserrat is an island of about 100 sq km, 15 minutes' flight (or about one
hour by ferry) from Antigua. It is a British Overseas Territory, but they
do use the EC$ as their currency. Much of the population fled the island
(to Antigua, in part) when the Soufriere volcano erupted in July 1995;
about 6,000 people lived on the island when I was there in 1999.

I also had the opportunity to visit Montserrat by private plane (the airport
is closed but you can fly around the island), and the full scale of the
damage caused by the volcano is really only visible from the air.

Tips for Travellers

If you can spare a day or two, the Montserrat tour is highly recommended!
You will have to spend about EC$ 80 for the ferry trip (return), another
EC$ 50 "departure tax" (since you are leaving for a foreign country!),
and you will probably want a taxi on Montserrat to take you to a few
places - that's going to be another EC$ 50-100.

The ferry - the M.V. Opale Express when I was there - leaves Antigua at
the port in St. John's and goes to Little Bay. When you come back to
Antigua, you will of course have to clear customs and immigration, so
expect a few delays there... but many people from Montserrat do the trip
every week for shopping, so it can't be too bad.

You can also go by helicopter which is supposedly not much more expensive
than the ferry (in the region of EC$ 120 return), but I haven't tried
that.

Tourist accommodation is available on Montserrat, so if you want to stay
a bit longer, you'll no doubt find a nice and reasonably priced B&B or
guest house. My impression was that the people on Montserrat are extremely
welcoming.

There is really only one useful map of Montserrat, and it should be
available at the Map Shop on Antigua. I remember that I saw the map for
about half the price (in the region of EC$ 12) on Montserrat itself but
that's life - if you buy it on Antigua, customs gets involved ;-)